The Xilai Monastery was established in Panyu (now Guangzhou) by Emperor Wu of the Liang in the AD 520s.

It is traditionally credited to the Buddhist missionary monk, Bodhidharma, but he may have arrived in China as early as the Liu Song.

The name was changed to the Hualin Temple by the Zen master Zongfu (宗符) during his rehabilitation of its grounds in 1655.

[n 1] There used to be a Gilded Ashoka Pagoda (阿育王塔) and 500 arhats statues (五百羅漢像) but all of them were destroyed during cultural revolution.

This Chinese location article is a stub.